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In Galatians 2:20 Christ is presented as the One who has given Himself up for the believers and who lives in them. We must experience and enjoy Christ in this aspect. It is only when we come to know Christ as the One who lives in us and we live by Him, not by ourselves, that we can enjoy Christ as the One who rescues us out of religion. When we live by Him as our life, we realize that any kind of religion is bondage or slavery and does not help us to live Christ; rather, it hinders us from living Him. In other words, when we live a life that is Christ Himself, we discover that even the highest religion is only bondage and does not help us to progress in the way of life. By knowing Christ as the One who lives in us and by living by Christ through our faith in Him, we should experience and enjoy Him as the One who rescues us from religion.
In Galatians 2:20 Paul declares, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live.” When Christ was crucified, according to God’s economy we were included in Him. This is an accomplished fact. Moreover, this is not a matter of doctrine; it is a matter of revelation. In our Christian life there should come a day when the Holy Spirit shows us that we have already been crucified with Christ and that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. When we truly see this fact, we will not do anything by ourselves, for a dead person can neither do good nor have any hope. From that day onward, we simply will not be able to make any resolution or have any hope in ourselves. If we see that we ourselves were crucified with Christ when He died on the cross to save us, and if we praise the Lord for this fact, then He will have more ground in us, and He will be expressed through us.
God’s economy is to terminate us and put us into the tomb so that we may receive Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God. Having received Him, we should let Him live in us. It is crucial to see that we have been crucified and that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. If we realize this, we will care only for Christ and will say, “God, now I know that You do not want anything of me. You want nothing but Christ. I have been crucified, terminated, and finished so that I can live Christ and magnify Him.”
In verse 20 Paul goes on to say, “But it is Christ who lives in me.” We have died in Christ through His death, but now He lives in us through His resurrection. His living in us is entirely by His being the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). This point is fully developed in all the following chapters of Galatians, where the Spirit is presented and emphasized as the One whom we have received as life and in whom we should live.
No longer I in verse 2:20 does not indicate an exchanged life, a life in which Christ comes in and we go out, for later in this verse Paul said, “I live.” As regenerated people, we have both the old “I,” which has been crucified (Rom. 6:6), concerning which Paul said, “No longer I,” and a new “I,” concerning which Paul said, “I live.” The old, terminated “I” was without divinity; the new “I” has God as life added to it. The new “I” came into being when the old “I” was resurrected and God was added to it. On the one hand, Paul had been terminated, but on the other hand, a resurrected Paul, one who was regenerated with God as his life, still lived. Furthermore, although Paul said, “No longer I,” he also said, “It is Christ who lives in me,” for it was Christ who lived, but it was in Paul that He lived. The two, Christ and Paul, had one life and one living.
The “I,” the natural person, inclines to keep the law that it might be perfect (Phil. 3:6), but God wants us to live Christ that God might be expressed in us through Him (1:20-21). Hence, God’s economy is that the “I” be crucified in Christ’s death and that Christ live in us in His resurrection. To keep the law is to exalt it above all things in our life; to live Christ is to make Him the center and everything in our life. The law was used by God for a period of time to keep His chosen people in custody for Christ (Gal. 3:23) and eventually to conduct them to Christ (v. 24) that they might receive Him as life and live Him to be God’s expression. Because Christ has come, the function of the law has been terminated, and Christ must replace the law in our lives for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose.
In 2:20 Paul says, “It is Christ who lives in me.” According to the concept of an exchanged life, our life is terminated and Christ lives. But we need a more thorough understanding of what it means to say that Christ lives in us. It is rather easy to understand that Christ lives, but it is difficult to understand how Christ lives in us. This does not mean that I have been crucified and live no longer and that Christ lives instead of me. On the one hand, Paul says, “No longer I”; on the other hand, he says, “Christ...lives in me.” The phrase in me is of great importance. Yes, it is Christ who lives, but it is in us that He lives.
In order to understand how Christ can live in us, we need to turn to John 14. Before His death and resurrection the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, “Because I live, you also shall live” (v. 19). Christ lives in us by causing us to live with Him. Christ does not live alone. He lives in us and with us. He lives by enabling us to live with Him. In a very real sense, if we do not live with Him, He cannot live in us. We have not been altogether ruled out, and our life has not been exchanged for the divine life. We continue to exist, but we exist with the Triune God. The Triune God who now dwells within us causes us to live with Christ. Hence, Christ lives in us through our living with Him.
Once again the illustration of grafting helps our understanding. After a branch has been grafted into a productive tree, the branch continues to live. However, it lives not by itself but by the tree into which it has been grafted. Furthermore, the tree lives in the branch which has been grafted into it. The branch now lives a grafted life. This means that it lives not by itself but by the life of the tree into which it has been grafted. Furthermore, this other life, the life of the productive tree, does not live by itself but through the branch grafted into it. The life of the tree lives in the branch. Eventually, the branch and the tree have one life with one living. In the same principle, we and Christ also have one life and one living.
The Christian life is not an exchanged life, a life in which a lower life is exchanged for a higher one but a life in union with Christ, a grafted life, a life in which the human life is grafted into the life of Christ. On the one hand, we the Gentiles, who were the wild olive branches, have been cut off from a wild olive tree; on the other hand, we have been grafted into a cultivated olive tree (Rom. 11:17, 20, 24). Through crucifixion we have been cut off from Adam, and in resurrection we have been grafted into Christ. We have become the branches of Christ who is the true vine (John 15:1). We and Christ share the same life and the same living. On the one hand, we are terminated; on the other hand, we continue to exist, but we do not live without Him. Christ lives within us, and we live with Him. Therefore, we and He have one life and one living. This corresponds with Romans 6. On the one hand, verse 6 says that our old man has been crucified with Christ; on the other hand, verse 11 says that in Christ we are dead to sin but alive to God. This indicates that we do not have an exchanged life, a life in which we are altogether ruled out, but a grafted life, a life in which we are joined to Christ.
If we see this, we will also see that just as the Son lived because of the Father, we should now live because of Christ, taking Him as our person. In John 6:57 the Lord Jesus said, “As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” The Father and the Son are two persons, yet they had but one life and one living. The Father was the life of the Son, and the Son was the living of the Father. Life refers to the inner substance, and living refers to the outward expression. The Father was the living substance within the Son, and the Son was the living expression of the Father. The Son did not live by Himself. However, this does not mean that the Son was set aside and ceased to exist. The Son, of course, continued to exist, but He did not live His own life. Instead, He lived the life of the Father; He lived by the Father and lived the Father. The Son lived because the Father was living within Him (5:19, 30; 14:10). In so doing, the Son expressed the Father, and the Father’s life was revealed in the Son’s living. In this way, the Son and the Father had one life and one living. They shared the same life and had the same living.
All Christians need to realize that we have another person — Christ — living in us. We the believers have Christ — a great, divine, and all-inclusive person — living within us. Christ is in us not only as our life; He as a person lives in us. We need to see the vision that the very One who died on the cross to redeem us is now living within us.
Christ, on the one hand, is in the third heaven, but on the other hand, He lives within us. Christ became the life-giving Spirit in order that He might live in us. Without being the life-giving Spirit, it would not be possible for the heavenly Christ to live in us. According to the New Testament revelation, Christ is both the ascended Lord and the life-giving Spirit. As the ascended Lord, He is sitting in the heavens at the right hand of God, and as the life-giving Spirit, He lives within us. Now we have Christ not only as our life but also as our person. Because He lives in us, we should take Him as our person and live Him.
Paul’s word in Galatians 2:20 about Christ living in us is definite and emphatic. Paul clearly says that Christ, as a person, lives in us. This Christ who lives in us is the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the Spirit. Now that He dwells in us as the Spirit, we need to learn how to let Him live in us and how to live together with Him. A normal believer is a person who has one life and one living with Christ. We are one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17), we have one life with Him, and now we should be one person with Him. Sooner or later, those who seek the Lord realize that Someone divine, heavenly, eternal, and spiritual lives in them as a person.
We live Christ because He lives in us (Col. 3:4a; John 14:19-20). Christ lives in us to be our life; we live Christ to be His living. Now it is not we who live but Christ who lives in us through His resurrection. Christ lives in resurrection, and He lives within us. Christ sits on the throne as the Lord, but He lives in us as the Spirit. In John 14:19 the Lord Jesus said that because He lives, that is, in resurrection, we also shall live in Him. We all need to be deeply impressed that Christ lives in us and that we live in Him. Our need is simply to pray “Lord Jesus, I love You. Thank You, Lord, that You are one with me. You live in me, and I live in You. Lord Jesus, I desire to live You all the time.”
What God desires is to gain a group of people who live by Christ that they may be the corporate expression of Christ. Day by day we need to take Him as our life within so that we may be His living without for His corporate expression. This kind of life should not be occasional or accidental; it must be our habitual daily living from morning to evening. In the matters of our daily life it is very easy for us to live completely by ourselves and not by the Lord. We need to continually exercise to live not by ourselves but by Christ. In every action, word, and thought we should practice living by Him and living because of Him.
In Galatians 2:20 Paul declares, “I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God.” Here the expression the Son of God denotes Christ’s person, which is for the impartation of God’s life into us. Hence, the faith in which we live God’s life is in the Son of God, the life-imparting One. The Son of God loved us and purposely gave Himself up for us that He might impart the divine life into us. The life which we now live in the flesh is not bios, the physical life, or psuche, the soulish life, but zoe, the spiritual and divine life. In contrast to the way we live the physical and soulish life, we live the divine life not by sight or by feeling. The divine life, the spiritual life in our spirit, is lived by the exercise of faith, which is stimulated by the presence of the life-giving Spirit.
One secret of experiencing Christ living in us is revealed in a phrase in Galatians 2:20 — in faith. Paul did not live by his own faith; he lived by the faith that is both in and of the Son of God. This indicates that we need to live by a certain kind of faith. However, this faith is not something that we ourselves have. Rather, it is the faith of the Son of God. What we need is not only faith that is in Christ but also faith that is of Christ. The faith is His, not ours, but we can be in this faith.
In speaking of faith, Paul refers to “the faith of the Son of God.” This expression implies that the faith mentioned in this verse is the faith of the Son of God, the faith which He Himself possesses. However, this phrase also means faith in the Son of God.
Paul wrote the book of Galatians both according to truth and according to his experience. According to our Christian experience, the genuine living faith which operates in us is not only of Christ but also in Christ. Hence, Paul’s meaning here actually is “the faith of and in Christ.” Paul’s thought is that the faith is both of Christ and in Christ.
We have pointed out that faith is our appreciation of what the Lord is and what He has done for us and that genuine faith is Christ Himself infused into us to become our ability to believe in Him. After the Lord has been infused into us, He spontaneously becomes our faith. On the one hand, this faith is of Christ; on the other hand, it is in Christ. This faith is Christ revealed to us and infused into us. Faith is related not only to the Christ who has been infused into us but also to the Christ who is continually infusing Himself into us. As Christ operates in us, He becomes our faith. This faith is of Him and also in Him.
Paul concludes Galatians 2:20 by referring to the Son of God as the One “who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” In writing these words, Paul was filled with appreciation of the Lord Jesus. Otherwise, at the end of such a long verse there would have been no need for him to speak of Christ loving him and giving Himself up for him. He could have concluded with the expression the faith of the Son of God. But as he was speaking of the way he now lived, his heart was filled with gratitude and appreciation. Faith comes from such an appreciation of the Lord Jesus.
In 2 Corinthians 5:14 and 15 Paul says, “The love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised.” As we consider these verses, we can see that Paul’s faith came from an appreciation of the constraining love of Christ. The more we appreciate Christ’s constraining love, the more faith we will have. This faith is not produced by our own ability or activity. Rather, it is produced by the working in us of the Christ whom we appreciate. In our appreciation for the Lord Jesus, we will say, “Lord Jesus, I love You and I treasure You.” As we speak such words to the Lord, He operates within us and becomes our faith. This faith brings about an organic union in which we and Christ are truly one. This organic union is a basic and crucial aspect of God’s New Testament economy.
Moreover, since the very One who loved Paul and gave Himself up for him now lived in him, the love of Christ constrained Paul to live no longer to himself but to Christ. The love of Christ constrained Paul to love Him and to take Him as his life and his person. Likewise, since Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us that He might impart Himself as the divine life into us, we should now love Him and live by Him.
Experiencing Christ as the One who has given Himself up for the believers and who lives in them is not a matter of mere doctrine; it is altogether a matter of life and love. We love Christ and simply desire to live a life that is Christ Himself. As a result, we cannot but give up religion and instead enjoy Christ.
In summary, God’s economy is not that we try to keep the law in the strength of our flesh; His economy is to work Himself into us. The Triune God has become the processed God. Through incarnation, Christ came in the flesh to fulfill the law and then to set it aside. Through His resurrection, Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, ready to enter into us. Whenever we call on His name out of our appreciation of Him, He comes into us and becomes the living faith which operates in us and brings us into an organic union with Him. God’s New Testament economy is for the processed Triune God to be wrought into us to become our life and our being. If we see this, we will be able to proclaim that we have been crucified with Christ and that we live no longer. Nevertheless, Christ lives in us, and we live by the faith that is in Him and of Him. Our old person, the old “I,” has been crucified, but the new person, the new “I,” still lives. Now we live by faith in the Son of God and of the Son of God, a faith that produces an organic union in which we and Christ are one. There is no comparison between keeping the law and such an organic union. In His economy God’s intention is for the processed Triune God to be wrought into our being to make us a new person, a new “I.” The old person, the old “I,” the “I” without God, is over, but the new person, the new “I,” the “I” with the Triune God in it, still lives. We live with Christ and by Christ. Furthermore, we live by faith, which is the means to bring us into oneness with Him. In this organic union we are one with the Lord, for we have one life and one living with Him. When we live, He lives. He lives in us, and we live with Him. We live by Him, and He lives in us. If we do not live, He does not live, and if He does not live, we cannot live.
